Customized Agricultural Advisory Services for Smallholder Farmers in India
Full citation:
Harigaya, Tomoko and Jessica Zhu. 2025. “Customized Agricultural Advisory Services for Smallholder Farmers in India.” Report.
Links:
Abstract:
Precision Development (PxD) has collaborated with governments and other partners to design and scale mobile phone-based agricultural information services among millions of farmers in India. In this report, we analyze PxD’s administrative data across five states and survey data from a randomized evaluation in Odisha to understand how service usage and the impact of digital advisory vary by farmer characteristics. Specifically, we focus on disadvantaged groups, including women, poorer farmers, farmers with low education levels, farmers with low productivity levels, and farmers in lessserviced areas. Our analysis generates three key findings. First, the majority of farmers who register for the service successfully access agricultural information and continue to use the service across multiple seasons, but the intensity of service usage is often lower among the disadvantaged groups. Second, the randomized evaluation of the service among rice farmers in Odisha offers evidence that a mobile phone-based advisory service can help farmers cope with weather shocks such as excess and inadequate rainfall, reducing the probability of severe crop loss from weather-related events and generating a large impact on agricultural outcomes in areas hit by those weather shocks. Third, our analysis suggests that farmers in disadvantaged groups substantially benefit from having access to a digital advisory service. These findings point to the importance of access to customized, real-time information that meets the heterogeneous and dynamic needs of smallholder farmers.
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